Overview
The SMIS project aimed to unify educational data across various educational authorities in Tanzania, including colleges, universities, trade schools, and folk education schools. The project was part of a $120M USD World Bank education initiative in Tanzania. It streamlined data sharing, making it easier to assess the educational system’s performance and deploy targeted interventions.
I worked as lead coordinator, data analyst, and developer on the project. I was responsible for stakeholder negotiation, data aggregation, dashboard development, and training.
Collaboration is the key to progress.
Technologies Used
- PHP
- Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)
- SQL Server
- MySQL
- JavaScript
- Laravel
Implementation
The primary challenge was negotiating data access between the various educational institutions. Through strategic negotiations and collaborations, we successfully aggregated the data in a centralized system.
Data Aggregation
Each institution had its own data collection and storage system. We used Pentaho to extract data from each system, transform it to our standard, and load it into a new centralized database.
Dashboard
The dashboard served as the interface for interacting with the aggregated data. It provided functionalities like:
- Search and filter data across institutions and metrics
- Export data for offline analysis
- Visualizations of key project metrics, such as:
- Number of women enrolled in various programs
- Number of qualifying programs
- Students affected by our programs
Results
The project transformed data sharing from a month-long process to a near-instantaneous one. Data request delays between agencies went from 1-3 months to just 5 minutes.
Future Work
The Tanzania Ministry of Education has continued ongoing development of the system.